:: Retention vs. Acquisition
::
When you start a start-up, you have a
major goal in your sights - Customer Acquisition. It
doesn't matter how, it doesn't matter where, you need
customers, or as my friend "Gray" would say -
EYEBALLS.
Most companies in the Wadi learned this
lesson. They have a problem with lesson 2: Keeping your
customers with you. The technical term for that is
'Customer Retention'.
Now, You would think that big Wadi
companies should know about this. Wrong. Lets take
"Yes" as an example. They have 90,000 people
waiting for months to get connected. 90,000. That's
ninety-thousand people who were convinced by a major
advertising campaign, and are willing to pay a hefty sum
for a service. They're still waiting.
Lets look at another example.
"Orange" has invested god knows how many
gazillions in advertising. So - They acquired customers.
A lot of them. How much emphasis do they put in keep
them? in my opinion - very little. Lets say you are a
business man. Your company uses "Orange". You
have to take a business trip to the U.S.
"Orange" sends you this nice cell-phone which
works in the U.S. Now you're back. You want to return
the cell-phone. Well, tough luck compadre. There's only
one person in the whole of Gush Dan which can take that
phone back from you. He sits in a small window in
Orange's store in Kenyon Ayalon. One person. For the
whole of Gush Dan. How much would it cost
"Orange" to put another person in a different
place? I'm betting it would cost less than what they pay
on advertising in a week. But - they're not in the
business of retention. They're in the business of
acquisition.
Finally - let's take an opposite example.
There once was a global ISP called IBM.net (now they're
called AT&T Global) Their strategy was like this: We
don't connect new users, until we have the
infrastructure to support them. They had a formula - X
customers equals Y bandwidth. If they cant give you the
bandwidth which seems appropriate - They won't connect
you. Can you think of any Wadi company working like
that? Anyone?
Wadi Writer # 3 (Maroon)
WadiList@mail.com
